Much of the cricketing attention at the minute is on India and the Indian Premier League but Sri Lanka and Bangladesh don’t appear to have read that script as they begin a two match Test series in Pallekele on Wednesday.
In the overall scheme of things this series counts for very little but for two sides who are looking to re-establish themselves among the bigger players in the longer format of the game, it is an important series for both of them.
Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankans have been pretty active when it comes to Test cricket so far in 2021 and in the latter stages of 2020. They have faced South Africa, England and West Indies and given creditable performances at times and woeful ones at others. Their latest series was in West Indies where they dominated large periods of play but couldn’t get over the line, coming away with a 0-0 draw in a series they would have wanted more from.
The one thing which impressed in the Caribbean was the Sri Lankan batting and that is something that will be crucial if they are to return to being competitive in this format of the game. You would expect Sri Lanka to be more than competitive with the ball in their own conditions but it is interesting that a couple of days out from the match there was said to be green grass on the pitch. Perhaps they have realised their issues when travelling overseas and are using this series to try and combat that.
Bangladesh
While Sri Lanka were once in a good position within the Test realms, Bangladesh are still relatively new to the picture so this gives them an opportunity to gain in significance in it, and with things like the World Test Championship now established this has the feeling of one of the more important series for the Tigers. If they can come away with a series win here it will go some way to putting the disappointment of losing to West Indies behind them.
Much like their opponents here, the big issue for Bangladesh in this format of the game has been their bowling. They struggle to get anywhere near 20 wickets when they go overseas. It is not quite as much of an issue when they go away to fellow Asian sides but it is something they need to rectify moving forward. With Shakib at the IPL, all eyes will be on their senior batsmen in this match to see how they cope in his absence.
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Team News
Sri Lanka will be looking to get Pathum Nissanka into their side but it could be that his only route in is at the hands of Dinesh Chandimal so it will be interesting to see who they go with there. There is also talk that Sri Lanka will go in with three seamers.
Bangladesh will be without Shakib-al-Hasan as he is away in the Indian Premier League which will put a lot of strain on the likes of Tamim Iqbal, Mominul Haque and Mushfiqur Rahim. Mehidy Hasan could have a large workload here too.
Betting
I’ll go with the one bet over the course of the Test match. That is on the performance of Dhananjaya de Silva who actually plays a pretty large part in Test matches in this part of the world. He has developed into a decent enough top six batsman. In his last eight Test he has scored two centuries and another three 50s so he knows how to pace an innings and build it the right way in this format of the game. Those have come at home and away from home which shows how good a player he is.
The performance line is 86.5 which clearly the record with the bat in recent times shows that he can cover with the bat, especially now he is batting at six with a genuine batsman below him in Dickwella and a more than handy all-rounder at eight in Hasaranga. He will also bowl his off spin as the match goes on and that is more than capable of picking up wickets which will take away significant chunks of that total. He will also field around the bat as well so that 86.5 line looks a little on the low side to me.
Tips
WON – Back D.de Silva’s Performance – Over 86.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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